I found out I was pregnant with my daughter just a few weeks before turning twenty-one.
I am now twenty-three and a stay-at-home mom.
What isn't talked about is stay-at-home mom depression that happens time to time. I mean how dare we complain about staying at home all day with our own kids, but it's all we become. It sounds nice right, being a stay-at-home mom? Most believe it is laying around and doing nothing, relaxing, watching tv, and the life of luxury while hanging out with your little ones all day, and sometimes that is true but most times it's not.
What isn't talked about is the isolation that starts to come with being a stay-at-home mom. You're alone all day with no adult interaction. You start to feel alone. You start to lose your identity. It's cleaning up the house all day for another mess to be made fifteen minutes later.
You slowly start to become more irritable because you don't necessarily get a break from home; it's constant cleaning, laundry, and cooking. All we're looking for is five minutes without someone touching us. Your sex drive slowly starts to disappear. And you seem to be exhausted even though you're home all day. I've heard it all, that it can't be that hard staying home or you choose to have a kid so stop complaining.
Before kids, us moms were functioning adults, who had jobs and got to interact with other adults daily. So it's okay to feel alone or overwhelmed sometimes, it's a big adjustment no matter what anyone says. Unless you've stayed at home every day with limited interaction with adults other than your spouse and a tiny person testing your limit, you should probably keep your mouth shut.
As a mom of a very sassy nineteen-month-old daughter and a wife of an active duty sailor, here's my advice on how to get that alone time so you don't lose your sanity - Get on a routine, even though you no longer wake up for a nine to five job anymore, still have your body set for sleep so your sleep schedule isn't all out of wack and you're cranky all day. Wake up early, it's nice getting up before your kid does because you get that alone time to get things done, like school work or Odyssey articles.
It's important to realize that you most likely won't be a permanent stay-at-home mom. The little ones are soon to grow up and not need us around so much. So even though you feel like a maid or unappreciated for what you do get done around the house, remember to enjoy the moments your baby's want to spend time with you before it's too late.